Writing is the same as music. It’s in how you phrase it, how you hold back the note, bend it, shape it, then release it. And what you don’t play is as important as what you do say.
Interpretation
Writing, like music, involves nuanced expression where both what is included and omitted carry significance.
This quote by Robert Creeley suggests that the art of writing is akin to the art of music, emphasizing the importance of phrasing and the careful selection of words. Just as musicians manipulate notes to create emotion and meaning, writers must consider how they express their thoughts, highlighting the crucial role of silence or omission in conveying a message effectively.
In practice
This quote can be used in a writing workshop to inspire participants to think about their word choices.
I did however used to think, you know, in the woods walking, and as a kid playing in the woods, that there was a kind of immanence there — that woods, and places of that order, had a sense, a kind of presence, that you could feel; that there was something peculiarly, physically present, a feeling of place almost conscious ... like God. It evoked that.
Moon, moon, when you leave me alone all the darkness is an utter blackness, a pit of fear, a stench, hands unreasonable never to touch. But I love you. Do you love me. What to say when you see me.
In the future, you won't buy artists' works; you'll buy software that makes original pieces of 'their' works, or that recreates their way of looking at things. You could buy a Shostakovich box, or you could buy a Brahms box. You might want some Shostakovich slow-movement-like music to be generated. So then you use that box.
It's so easy to call something a Jewish story or a gay story or a woman's story. Aesthetically, if a story is not universal, it has failed. Your obligation is to the story. One rule creatively, and emotionally, is its universality.
Ever since I was a kid, I always wanted to play music that I liked, and even when I was in cover bands when I was a teenager we only played cover tunes that we liked. That was the simple morality that I grew up with.
I never paid attention to what was contemporary or what was commercial, it didn't mean anything to me.
The collision of hail or rain with hard surfaces, or the song of cicadas in a summer field. These sonic events are made out of thousands of isolated sounds; this multitude of sounds, seen as totality, is a new sonic event.
On a bike, being just slightly above pedestrian and car eye level, one gets a perfect view of the goings-on in one's own town.
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